nina is a double doctor (virtu) wrote in fableless, @ 2016-11-27 13:30:00 |
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He had chosen a good time to drop by the World’s Ending for an impromptu drink, Samar thought. A tolerable noise level, none of this terrible singing that people chose to pass off as karaoke, a nice stiff drink to round out a busy day at work … what wasn’t there to appreciate? It was enough to lure him into idle small talk with the bartender, even if only for a few minutes, before the bartender had to ask, “Hey, not to cut the convo short, but I gotta help out the other guys. You want another drink while I’m here?” Samar nodded. He reached for his wallet and pulled out a crisp ten-dollar bill -- surely enough for another Dark & Stormy and a decent tip -- to slip under his empty glass. With his only effective conversation buddy out of the picture, Samar swiveled his barstool to get a better view of the scene. People-watching wasn’t necessarily his thing, but -- wait, was that her? Curiosity betrayed him as he found himself staring in her direction for a mite too long. Seated at a high table near the wall, Nina had been reading a peer's article with a pen twirling around her fingers artfully. A glass of red wine sat off to the side, breathing and waiting to be touched. She preferred reading on paper, the ability to- and sound it made when she- scrawled notes, to a bright computer screen. It also allowed her to better have a sense when someone was looking her way, like now. Only after finishing the paragraph did she lift up her gaze, her eyes interlocking with brown bengal eyes. The recognition was immediate, though it had been so many years. Anticipating the flood of emotions, Nina hardened her heart. Pause. After a beat, she smiled at Samar welcomingly. If split seconds were lengthened, Samar’s face would have been caught with an “o”. But muscle memory and time had the better of him as the corners of his lips upturned into a smile, this one genuine if not a bit unfamiliar due to the passage of time. He raised his hand in a casual wave, but really? Was he just going to sit there? His drink could wait. He walked over towards Nina, and quickly checking if the adjacent spot was vacant, slid into the nearest seat. “Hey,” he offered. “Long time no see.” “It has,” Nina replied, looking at Samar as if reminiscent. Instead, what was running through her mind was what was running through his? The fact that he decided to take a seat at her table indicated curiosity above anything else, and he genuinely did appear surprised to see her. As she continued to deconstruct and analyze the moment, she found herself comparing this Samar to the one once upon a time. The change of hair style, a more prominent scruff, his face weathered and worn, even his eyes appeared guarded, cold. She remembered those eyes clearly, often cool and icy, but she could recall them fiery and passionate, just the same. Setting her pen down, Nina softened her gaze and demeanor. “How have you been, Samar?” Ah. A loaded question, that. But for Nina’s sake, he refrained from mentioning some of the weightier topics that had weighed on his mind as of late, and instead offered a closed-mouth smile before beginning: “Good, good.” He drummed his fingers on the surface of the table. “More important question, though. How are you? Feel free to tell me to leave if I’m --” he gestured toward what appeared to be her work. “-- interrupting something important.” She noted his smile, anticipating what he was going to say before he even said it: a no answer answer followed by deflection. “Not at all,” she replied, straightening out her papers and setting the pile off to the side along with her pen. “I’ve been good enough. I’ll be starting as a professor at the Academy next week.” Samar’s smile transformed into a soft o at that last statement. “Congrats,” he finally said, hoping inwardly that this was indeed something she was happy about and not a job assignment she’d been forced to take. “What are you teaching?” “Psychology. I’m excited to start,” she said, letting her smile reach her eyes. She tilted her glass of wine at him slightly before taking a sip from her glass of wine. Nina looked comfortable with relaxed shoulders and her body faced toward him. “What have you been up to?” Samar took a thoughtful sip of his drink as he tried to mentally form a Sparknotes of the last several years. “I’ve mostly hung around here. Sahir and I opened a shop a few years ago, and it’s been holding up ever since.” He couldn’t help but ask: “You’ve been doing excellently, I hope?” “Opened up a shop?” she repeated, her brows quirking up. An entrepreneur or a businessman was a shift from the trajectory Samar had been on before she had left. “I’ve been well enough. Schooling, researching; what you could have imagined for me, is mostly how it went.” At times, it grew monotonous. Even new discoveries and trial runs didn’t quite excite her the same. Still, it was the answer that seemed to placate most of her old friends, she imagined it could do the same for her former lover. “Ah, yeah,” Samar admitted, realizing that being the owner of the Crippled Tower had deviated quite strongly from his college-aged ambitions. “We had an idea to sell some of the games in our attic a while back, and it snowballed into a real shop. It’s not Gamestop by any means, but --” he shrugged modestly. “-- it’s been doing alright.” Suddenly finding his life too provincial and moreover curious about Nina, he deflected back to her. “Stanford, right? How was Norcal?” The way Nina looked at Samar softened, if for a moment. Her lips subtly pursed for a moment, as she tried to imagine the route he was on to get to this moment, before turning it into a smile. “I’m happy to hear that. I’d like to come by sometime?” “Sure,” Samar grinned. “Feel free to drop on over when you have the time.” Inhaling in preparation for giving Samar her rehearsed Norcal Speech, she found herself cut short as her colleague stepped through the door, her light eyes darting around the World’s End before making eye contact with her. Nina’s eyes shifted quickly to her watch (nearly fifteen minutes early, that one), before looking apologetically at Samar. “How about a proper catch up over lunch, or dinner? Is your number still the same?” “You know, that sounds like a great idea,” Samar answered congenially. “My number should --” he paused to mentally calculate the last time he’d changed his number versus the last time he’d seen her. “-- be the same. Anyway, I’ll leave you to your work. We’ll catch up later.” And with that (and a couple dollar bills for the bartender), he got up, perhaps to head outside for a cigarette and eventually the way home, but not before waving Nina her goodbyes as he left the bar. |